in 1308, and also in the grant of a lordship that had suddenly become
tremendously important: the Isle of Man.^93
The crucial development came in 1310–11, when Henry wedded Alice
Comyn, coheiress to the earldom of Buchan.^94 The marriage also
brought with it a claim to the constableship of Scotland.^95 In a way,
these nuptials mark the culmination of the rise of the Beaumonts within
the British Isles. It is worth noting, however, that the Anglo-Scottish war
needed to be won before Henry could hope to take possession of what
he regarded as his new earldom, not to mention his post as constable.
The Comyns had been the arch-rivals of the new king of Scotland,
Robert I‘the Bruce’, the grandson of the competitor of 1290–2. They
had been implacably opposed to him ever since the murder of Alice’s
kinsman, John Comyn of Badenoch, at Bruce’s own hands in 1306. Over
the course of the next couple of years, the last Comyn earl of Buchan was
defeated in battle,fleeing to die in the south, whilst the new King Robert
harried his lands mercilessly (the notorious‘herschip of Buchan’).^96
It was thus only a couple of titles that Henry had acquired, not the reality
of lordship‘on the ground’. A far more immediate problem was lurking,
though, amidst the acrimonious environment of English politics in
the early 1310s. The house of Beaumont had every reason to fear an
emerging baronial backlash against the crown, which would jeopardize
their very position in England as well as their opportunities for advance-
ment in Scotland. The momentous events of 1311–14 would demon-
strate that the sky was not the limit. Henry–and, indeed, his sister
Isabella–had built on very shaky foundations.
The Last Years of the EmpressCharles of Anjou’s conquests in 1265–6 precipitated a process in which
the remaining members of the Brienne dynasty, in the Mediterranean,
followed in the footsteps of Louis of Beaumont and entered into a
series of formal, subordinate relationships with the new king of Sicily.
Hence, we will turn to focus on the earliest line of the family to do
(^93) For these appointments, see Maddicott’s article in theODNB; andCDS, iii, no. 481.
Henry was also appointed castellan of Roxburgh, and sheriff of the county (ibid., iii,
nos. 122, 129).
(^94) For the campaign, see D. Simpkin,‘The English Army and the Scottish Campaign of
1310 – 1311 ’,inEngland and Scotland in the Fourteenth Century: New Perspectives, ed.
95 A. King and M. Penman (Woodbridge, 2007), 14–39.
96 For this, seeCDS, iii, no. 201.
See A. Young,Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212– 1314 (East Linton, 1997),
202 – 8.
The Last Years of the Empress 121